Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 1 Introduction
Compared with the other educational levels, the application and integration of ICT in
the early childhood education tend to be more controversially discussed in the
educational field globally. Many researchers believe that ICT integration in teaching
can bring children lots of benefits on their learning and development, thus they support
the use of ICT in this educational stage. These benefits can be reflected in multiple
aspects, involving language and emergent literacy, mathematical thinking, creativity,
problem solving, personality, communication and collaboration, also positive attitudes
toward learning (Liu and Pange, 2014). On the contrary, there are also many researchers
take negative attitudes toward the integration of ICT in early childhood teaching, in
particular for very young children. These researchers argued that improper adoption or
overuse of ICT in preschool teaching would easily cause some harmful influences on
childrens health, harmful digital content, childrens privacy and childrens isolation
from the society and real-world (Liu and Pange, 2014). However, Liu and Pange 2014
debates, because the rapid advancement and ubiquity of ICT in humans life and
apparently including young children at the same time, an increasing number of
researchers have realized that it is meaningless to continue discussing whether to
integrate ICT into preschool teaching at the current time. The most important issue
which is worth to consider should be How to integrate ICT in an appropriate and
effective manner into teaching to promote the childrens learning and development in
the early childhood education. Undeniably, people has seen precisely benefits and
active achievements in early childhood education which were brought by ICT. Hence,
plenty of research papers in relation to the ICT application in early childhood education
in different aspects have been issued around the world. Moreover, most countries
established related educational policies and invested in ICT-related hardware, software,
internet access in the kindergarten and teacher training (Liu et al, 2014). It follows that
the use of ICT in this educational level has drawn a highly public attention globally at
the moment, and it has been a topical issue among the governments and educational
fields in the major parts of the world. However, the integration of ICT in the preschool
education still need a further research and improvement. Because the development of
it in early childhood teaching only experienced a few decades. It is difficult for
educators to know deeply and sufficiently about the use of ICT into preschool teaching
in such a short time. Naturally, preschool educators have limited capability to
manipulate the ICT in an appropriate and effective manner in teaching. In the other
aspect, the ages of children in the early childhood education are between zero and eight
years old in a general way. Children in this ages just start to know the world and they
lack of cognitive competence and recognizing ability toward everything. Hence, the
guidance of young children needs be more considerate in particular in relation to the
integration of ICT. Additionally, as previously mentioned that the use of ICT in early
childhood education can be both helpful and harmful to young children. The widely use
of it into preschool teaching has proved that the merits of the ICT integration outweigh
its shortcomings. But even still, the underlying problems should not be ignored. These
would easily influence on childrens growth and physical and mental health. From the
above, the use of ICT in preschool education need to be further deeply researched. Also
early childhood educators need to consider very prudently in terms of how to integrate
it in an appropriate and effective manner in order to promote childrens development
and learning.
The underlying research meaning of this research is to identify the existing problems
and potential affecting factors which hinder ICT use in the Chinese early childhood
teaching. The main audience of this research could be the early childhood educators
and the related educational policy-makers in China. This may provide them a reference
for making the relevant adjustment and improvement in order to achieve the goal of
appropriately and effectively integrate ICT to promote childrens development and
learning in the early childhood teaching. Meanwhile, this also could be valuable
information for the other developing countries which have similar situation of ICT
integration in early childhood education as it in China. In addition, this research will
try to fill the gap of the previous research by adopting qualitative research method and
comparative study two types of kindergartens in different locations in mainland China.
This may present a further objective result because the potential influence factors have
been thought through which was the complex financial conditions in different
geographic locations and teaching systems in different types of kindergartens.
The whole thesis would consist of five chapters which are the chapters of Introduction,
Summary of the literature review, Methodology, Report and discussion on findings, and
the last chapter of Conclusions and recommendations. The first chapter of introduction
has provided a background of ICT integration in the educational field and in the early
childhood education globally. Then it has been explained the reasons for choosing a
specific context of Chinese early childhood education to study the use of ICT in
teaching. After that, the research purpose, the main research questions, and the
underlying research meaning also have been performed in the Introduction section. In
the second chapter, I will contrastively discuss the literatures in China and in the other
countries in relation to this topic based on my research purpose and the research
questions in order to seek a basic understand in my research field.
The term ICT has different comprehends and explanations in different settings,
although it has been widely used at present (Kala, 2010). Kerckaert, Vanderlinde, and
Braak (2015) defined ICT as anything which allows us to get information, to
communicate with each other, or to have an effect on the environment using electronic
or digital equipment. This research will concentrate the attention on studying ICT
integration in the context of early childhood education, especially in China. In the
context of early childhood education, it usually refers to integrating ICT tools,
techniques and equipment for supporting teaching, learning and other cognitive
activities (Kala, 2010). It includes computers and educational software applications,
data projectors, electronic whiteboards, digital cameras, digital tools for
communication, programmable toys and other similar devices (Kala, 2010).
Pre-class planning is one of the professional work that teachers have to carry out before
they directly teaching children in the class, and it closely correlative to the way teachers
teach (Ram rez, Clemente, Recama n, Mart n-Dom nguez, and Rodr guez, 2016).
Research shows ICT effectively helped teachers with their pre-class planning processes
by using desktop computers, laptops, Internet and some ICT-related software etc
(Ram rez et al., 2016). For example, Internet usually helped preschool teachers to
collate useful information and materials related to their lesson topics, such as colorful
images, videos, audios etc. The desktop computer and some planning software can help
them to design individual learning plans for children and to schedule courses. Moreover,
PowerPoint and computer can help teachers to collate the collected information, making
courseware, and designing learning activities etc. before having class with children.
Literature presents ICT also effectively assist the teaching in the preschool classrooms.
For instance, many early childhood teachers utilize Internet as a teaching resource with
children together when having class. They usually use Internet to search information or
resources, sparked by childrens interest in a particular topic or idea. Children can be
collaborative learners with teachers in this case, and it assist children in learning
effectively (Sefton-Green et al, 2016). In addition, the majority of teachers stated that
the interactive whiteboard, projector and television are the most frequently used ICT
tools in classroom practices. These ICT resources usually used for displaying
information in relation to the course contents including slides, images, videos, audios
etc., and this can be incorporated with teachers interpretation. This can help teachers
to make their oral explanation further clear, and make children better understand the
knowledge. Also, these ICT resources helped teachers to organize diverse learning
activities during the class. Besides, recently, iPads become a popular ICT tool in early
childhood teaching in many countries which has similar functions with the whiteboard.
It also can be utilized to display images, videos etc., to have interactions, share opinions
and solve problems with children (Flewitt, Messer & Kucirkova, 2015). Moreover, an
increasing number of teachers use iPad apps to enhance childrens learning and activate
their interests towards learning, which involve emergent literacy practices. iPads could
help teachers to cultivate childrens independent learning ability in their early years.
Besides, digital camera is also a helpful tool to help teachers to record childrens
performances and activities during the class. They can take digital photos, videos, or
audio recordings of individuals and activities and reviewing these together, or sharing
them with parents.
To sum up, literature shows that in the classroom practice, ICT helps teachers to
delivery knowledge to children in a vivid and interesting manner, and makes children
better understand what their teachers taught in the class. Secondly, teachers can create
various learn-centered and play-centered classroom activities through ICT tools assist.
Lastly, it can help to record childrens performances in the class and activities, then
share with them and their parents.
Preschool teachers usually use ICT tools for administration, and information
management, and data preservation. For example, desktop computers can be used for
creating databases to keep track of important information about children and their
families. Also, it can be used for preserving and recording the useful information of
their own work.
2.5 Barriers to ICT integration in Chinese early childhood teaching
Last sub sections have presented the benefits that ICT has brought to the early
childhood education, and the specific aspects that ICT helped early childhood teaching
based on previous literature. It is helpful for understanding the research question how
the ICT helps teaching, through providing the information of in which specific aspects
teachers need the assist of ICT, or ICT can help teachers in teaching. While it is
inadequate to achieve the research goal: to explore how using ICT helps and promotes
teaching in the Chinese early childhood education. It is necessary to identify the
existing and potential barriers on ICT integration in preschool teaching, in particular in
China. Except positive outcomes that ICT brought to early childhood education, there
are also a number of negative results that brought by ICT, such as childrens visual loss,
childrens privacy, childrens isolation from the real world and community Liu and
Pange, 2014. Moreover, it also has negative effects on teachers, including weaken
teachers professional competence etc. The appearance of these negative results are
mainly because of the inappropriate and ineffective adoption of ICT in teaching.
Therefore, identifying the barriers can be an effective way for exploring how ICT helps
and promotes teaching. This sub section presents the barriers of ICT integration in
preschool education according to Ertmer (1999), which can be classified to the first-
order barriers and second-order barriers. After that, more specific barriers in terms of
the ICT application in early childhood education in China will be performed based on
the literature, involving the lack of ICT facilities and resources, the lack of teachers
competence, confidence and knowledge, and the lack of professional guidance and
trainings for teachers.
Liu and Pange (2014) defined the barriers to ICT integration in teaching as condition
that do not support the ICT integration in the teaching practices. In terms of the general
education, Ertmer (1999) categorized these barriers into two groups: first-order barriers
(external to teachers) and second-order barriers (internal to teachers). The first-order
barriers include lack of facilities and resources, lack of time, lack of support, lack of
teacher training, limited classroom condition, and classroom management difficulty.
The second-order barriers involve teachers negative attitudes and beliefs, teachers
insufficient knowledge and competence, and teachers lack of confidence (Ertmer,
1999). Liu and pange (2014) denotes that the most mentioned barriers to ICT
integration the early childhood education are similar to those in the general education
contexts. Except first-order barriers and second-order barriers, Liu and Pange pointed
out there are less research on ICT integration conducted in preschool settings globally,
the attention is more concentrate on other educational contexts, such as primary
education, secondary education and higher education.
In terms of the ICT-related software, Li (2006) denoted that good educational software
is deficient in Chinese kindergartens, and some good sorts of educational software were
usually presented in English and produced by the western software engineers. The most
frequently used software in teaching is the basic office software, such as PowerPoint,
Word and Flash for Chinese preschool teachers, and a few of other educational software
are only used for English language lesson (Li, 2006). Therefore, very less software
could be used for teachers to extend childrens learning in teaching.
In most countries, policy and curriculum support for the development of ICT in the
early childhood education sector have lagged behind that given to the school sector. For
example, the growth and development of ICT in the school sector has sometimes been
driven by the desire to get more technology and technological infrastructure into
schools, without sufficient attention given to the pedagogical purposes for introducing
the technology, or the supporting conditions and resources that might enable the
technologies to contribute towards better teaching and learning experiences. According
to Higgins (2003), heavy investments have been made in ICT for use by teachers and
students in many countries, but the purposes of these investments have not always been
clear or made explicit. The evidence is clear that simply providing ICT equipment to
schools or teachers will not necessarily make a difference. However, this situation is
beginning to change. Some countries, like Scotland, have recently developed ICT
strategies for the early childhood education sector (Learning and Teaching Scotland,
2003b). Researchers, academics, and practitioners in preschool education have also
published books, articles, and guidelines which provide information and guidance
about ICT in early childhood, and aim to support early childhood education
practitioners to make well-informed decisions and choices about ICT. Hence, it is
necessary for preschool education sector to find a useful guidance in order to help pupils
to learn and teachers to teach more effectively. Meanwhile, there is now a strong focus
on the development of ICT policy, and integration of ICT in curriculum and practice
across the whole education sector.
2.6 ICT integration in Chinese early childhood education have not finished
current status
policy
teacher
The prime source for collecting data was through semi-structured interview and
observation. The use of observation method in the preschool classroom was aim to
collect the data of three aspects: what types of ICT being used in the preschool
classroom; how practitioners use them when having classes; and teachers and
childrens performances when they interacting with ICT in class. The adoption of
interview approach with open-ended research questions aimed to collect the
information of teachers perceptions and attitudes toward the ICT application in the
early childhood teaching based on individual teaching experiences and knowledge
background. The adoption of both data collection approaches in this research can
support and perfect the collected data from each method in order to achieve the goal of
the research.
Besides, the economic level in different areas of China can probably affect the situation
of the ICT application in different kindergartens. In order to acquire a more considerate
and objective result, the investigation happened in different geographic locations in
China. One investigated kindergarten was in the Shenzhen city, Guangdong province.
The other investigated kindergarten was in the Nanchang city, Jiangxi province.
Shenzhen is a coastal city which located in the southern China. This city is well
developed economically and technologically. Nanchang is a capital city of Jiangxi
province and it is located in the middle part of the mainland China. It has average
economic level and ranked as a second-tier developing city in China. While the
financial condition is lag behind Shenzhen city in terms of the development degree.
Two chosen cities have relatively different techno-economic level which represent two
dominant economic statuses in China.
In addition, the teaching systems in different types of kindergartens tend to be different.
This may lead the use of ICT in teaching in different manners which can be an influence
factor for the research. Hence, one investigated kindergarten was a government school
and the other was a private school. A number of researchers chose to investigate a single
geographic location in China in relation to this research field. However, the status of
ICT application in one location cannot represent the situation of it in the whole Chinese
early childhood education. Therefore, two different types of kindergartens in two
different cities with different financial conditions and teaching systems have been
chosen to investigate in this research. Furthermore, in order to take into account these
potential influence factors and obtain a relatively objective result, the collected data of
towards the research topic in both kindergartens have been comparatively analyzed and
studied.
3.3.1 Observation in the preschool classroom
Observation is one of the essential data collection approaches in this research. It can be
used to support and perfect the collected data in the interview process, giving further
objective and accurate information of what is happening towards the use of ICT in
Chinese early childhood teaching. Savin-Baden and Major (2013) denoted, observation
is a method of qualitative data collection for understanding how individuals construct
their realities. It has also been deemed as a way for researcher to document everyday
practices of participants and to do better understand their experiences. The goal for
using participant observation as a method of qualitative data collection is to develop a
holistic understanding of the phenomena which is as objective and accurate as possible
for researchers (Savin-Baden and Major, 2013). As previously mentioned, observation
aims to obtain a better understanding of research objects experiences and to collect
further objective and actual data in relation to the ICT integration in teaching through
observing what is happening in the actual preschool classroom. In order to achieve this
goal, the data collection from observation was focused on three aspects: what types of
ICT being used in the preschool classroom; how practitioners use them when having
classes; and teachers and childrens performances when they interacting with ICT in
class. Besides, passive participate approach was adopted in the observation process. In
the passive participation, researchers often function as spectators without direct
interactions with others, or they have only minimal involvement in it (Savin-Baden and
Major, 2013). During the observation process in this research, the researcher was not
engaged herself into the teaching and learning when having class, and just sited at back
of the classroom to observe and record the useful data. The reason for choosing passive
participation is mainly because it can as possible to avoid potentially biasing the
observation (Savin-Baden and Major, 2013).
Before presenting the procedure of the observation, it is necessary to introduce the class
type setting in current Chinese kindergartens. Four types of class in Chinese
kindergartens which are based on childrens age group, namely youngest class (under
3 years), junior class (3-4 years), middle class (4-5 years) and top class (5-6 years). In
this study, I spent half day (in total four days) for each type of classroom in two
kindergartens with teachers and children. In the first stage of observation, I asked the
kindergarten managers to get the email addresses of the parents from the classes I would
observed and the teacher participants in each class. Then I send the information sheet,
parental consent and consent form to the parents of children participants and teachers
in eight classes in order to get their observation permits. Also after I getting the permits
from the parents, I began the observation in the classroom. In order to naturally collect
practical and authentic data, the observations happened in the regular working time of
two kindergartens in the Shenzhen city and Nanchang city respectively.
The setting of interview questions in this research aimed to collect four aspects of
information: teachers perspectives toward how ICT being used in teaching, including
the processes of lesson preparation and having class; teachers perspectives toward in
which specific aspects, ICT effectively helped to promote teaching and learning;
teachers perspectives toward what can be the merits and constrains of ICT integration
in preschool teaching; teachers perspectives toward their ICT-related training
situation and the ICT-related educational polices in the Chinese early years setting.
Investigating teachers perspectives and attitudes toward the research topic is
significant, because this is the key to address the research questions. In order to avoid
time conflict which may happen between the interview time and working time,
interview happened in the coffee shop on weekends around one hour individually.
Researcher bought them a cup of coffee for each participant when interviewing. The
reason for this is that the researcher wanted to talk with her participants just like a friend
in a relaxed environment without any psychological burden. It was helpful for
researcher to acquire more real and rich responses from them. Talking from interview
were audiotaped which used by a smartphone to record, and a Mac laptop to document
personal notes during the interview and the same laptop to secure the recordings and
the data analysis content afterwards. Researcher also gave them a brief explanation and
summary of the discussed conversations individually at the end of the interview.
Besides, a document with detailed information of the research was sent to the potential
participants before the interview, it includes introduce myself, the project, its objective,
the timeline and what the content will generally include. In addition, before interview
researcher also explained what data will be collected/recorded, and how it will be
collected and withdrawing from participation. Participants understood that who
withdraw will be given the right to request that their data should be destroyed and never
used in the study. Finally, before signing the consent, I took any questions they have.
3.4 Participants
The participants in this research were formed by the teachers and children in two
investigated kindergartens. In terms of the participants for interview, the selection
criteria were teachers currently employed by Chinese kindergartens with more than 1
year teaching experience. They need to have some teaching experiences and the
elementary competence of ICT application in early childhood teaching. As I mentioned
before, in order to acquire a further objective and considerate result, it is essential to
investigate the use of ICT in different types of kindergartens, and in different
geographical locations of China with different levels of financial conditions. Hence, the
participants in this study for interview were in total eight preschool teachers, four of
them were currently working in the investigated private kindergarten in Shenzhen, and
the other four teachers were working in the investigated public kindergarten in
Nanchang. Besides, teacher groups in the case of Chinese preschool education mainly
consist of the instructors and the child care teachers. The instructors are in charge of
imparting knowledge to children, such as giving lessons, organizing educational-related
activities and so forth. While the child care teachers are responsible for managing
childrens trivial round, including guiding children to have breakfast and lunch, help
children to nurture the healthy habits, improving the hygienic status in the classroom
etc. In this case, only the instructors have the opportunities to use ICT in teaching and
learning processes. Hence, eight selected teachers for the interview are all instructors
in their kindergartens.
Meanwhile, all of the interview participants are female because there is no male EC
teacher working in the investigated kindergartens. Additionally, according to Liu &
Pange (2014), the teaching experience could be one of the major influence factor for
the teachers attitudes of ICT integration in the preschool education. Therefore, I
intentionally selected participated teachers with different levels of teaching experiences:
four selected teachers have 1-2 years teaching experience; two have 5 years teaching
experience; and the rest of two have more than 10-20 years teaching experience.
Teachers participants have different degrees of education. In terms of the public
kindergarten in the Nanchang city, four teachers all majored in the educational-related
departments. They all have the college diploma and the teacher certificate. In terms of
the kindergarten in the private kindergarten in the Shenzhen city, two investigated
teachers have college diplomas (one of them was majored in the English department
and the other one was majored in the graphic design), and the other two teachers were
graduated from the local post-secondary schools in the educational-related majors.
Besides, the other groups of participants were for the observation in this research.
They were children from the investigated classrooms. In this study, I spent half day (in
total four days) for each type of classroom in total eight classrooms in two kindergartens
with teachers and children. Twelve children in each classroom. Therefore, forty-eight
children participated in this research for the observation.
In order to guarantee the privacy security, interview recordings will be never shared
with anyone including teacher participants and kindergarten mangers. All of the
collected data will be kept by researcher only, such as observation notes, audiotape
recordings, transcriptions, interview notes will be saved on the personal laptop and
personal Dropbox of the researcher with passwords. The anonymous record and the
audio record of interview response will be kept until the end of dissertation assessment
process. It is worth mentioning that the respondents audio records were allocated
pseudonyms (four participant teachers in the private kindergarten in Shenzhen are Liao,
Li, Han and Wan; four participant teachers in the public kindergarten in Nanchang are
Wang, Shen, Gong and Pei) in any discussion of interview data. As for reporting data
in the research writing, respondents will be allocated pseudonyms as well in any
discussion of interview data in order to protect participant from conflicts. Any
information which may reveal the identity of the participant (for example, the
mentioning a particular place of work by the respondent), will be excluded from public
discussion.
The purpose of this research is to explore how using ICT helps and promotes teaching
in Chinese early childhood education. Researcher desired to know about two aspects
through empirical investigation and collected data: the specific ICT resource types
which are currently being used in the Chinese kindergartens; and how the ICT helps
teaching. The original collected date was from observation in four types of preschool
classroom and semi-structured interview with eight preschool teachers. Thematic
coding has been adopted to identify the common themes from the interview audiotapes,
interview transcripts, interview notes and observation notes. The collected data was
divided into three main themes in order to explicitly answer the research questions.
These themes included ICT resource types, teachers competence and confidence of
using ICT as a teaching tool, outcomes and constrains of ICT implementation in
preschool teaching. Further specific explanations and discussions of each theme will be
presented in the Report and discussion on findings chapter. Meanwhile, researcher will
analyze and discuss the results from two kindergartens in the way of comparison.
Chapter 4 Findings
4.1 Introduction
The data were collected from the observation in the classrooms in two Chinese
kindergartens and semi-structured interview with eight preschool teachers (from two
kindergartens). The collected data is based on observing the real environment in the
preschool class and teachers teaching experiences, perceptions and perspectives. This
chapter will present the following themes: ICT resource types and the basic usage in
teaching, Positive effects of ICT integration in teaching, The potential limitations and
teachers suggestions, and teacher training and policy.
4.2 Theme 1: ICT resource types and the basic usage in teaching
The data of the ICT resource types and the basic usage of them in teaching were
collected both from the observation in eight classrooms and interviewing eight
preschool teachers of two kindergartens. The collected data from each method can be
mutually complementary. Through observation, two aspects of data toward theme 1 can
be collected, which were which types of ICT hardware in each classroom?, and how
teachers use these ICT resources including hardware and software when having class?
In the interview, researcher found that except teaching in the classroom, there were two
important processes of early childhood teaching for teachers involving the lesson
preparation and teaching reflection after class. It was more focused on the process of
having class in the observation, while from investigating teachers perspectives and
perceptions in the interview, researcher can know about the use of ICT for teachers in
the processes of lesson preparation and teaching reflection. In what follows of this
section, researcher will present the specific types of ICT currently being used in
Chinese kindergartens, and how teachers use them in teaching.
Besides, there was an interesting finding towards interview. Every teacher participants
perceptions towards the concept of ICT were different. Most of teacher participants
considered only ICT-related hardware is the ICT resource, such as computers,
Bluetooth speaker, digital camera etc. (e.g. Participant Wang, Participant Gong,
Participant Miu, Participant Li, Participant Han). The minority of teachers thought the
ICT not only included hardware resources, but also the software resources, such as
PowerPoint and Flash etc. (e.g. Participant Pei, Participant Wan). Only one participant
believed that the personal Smartphone and some of the social networking software such
as QQ and WeChat also were the useful ICT tools in teaching (e.g. Participant Shen).
4.2.1 Hardware
In terms of the public kindergarten in Nanchang, every classroom equipped with an All-
in-one PC (AIO PC), a desktop computer, a Bluetooth speaker and a digital camera.
Similarly, the ICT hardware devices in the private preschool in Shenzhen also included
a desktop computer, a Bluetooth speaker and a digital camera in each classroom. Except
those common hardware items, two specialized multi-media halls, an electronic piano,
and a digital television also being used in the private preschool classroom in Shenzhen.
Both kindergartens all equipped with a desktop computer, a Bluetooth speaker and a
digital camera in each classroom, and they have similar usages in teaching. The desktop
computer in the classroom was used for the teaching scheduling, lesson preparation and
online idea sharing within teachers. In terms of the Bluetooth speaker, it can be
connected with the AIO PC, computer and Smartphone to play the music when children
doing their morning exercises, also when they in the music lesson. The digital camera
was usually used for recording the indoor and outdoor activities, and individual
performance for children.
Within these hardware technologies in the public kindergarten in Nanchang, the most
commonly used ICT was the AIO PC which had a big digital screen with multi-touch
display features. AIO PC is a computer that has every component within the same case
as the monitor, except for peripheral components like the keyboard and mouse. It was
hung on the wall in each classroom. Teachers mainly use AIO PC on displaying the
images, videos, Multimedia courseware for children, and searching online for useful
information in relation to the session topic in class.
In terms of the private kindergarten in Shenzhen, the most commonly used ICT tools
can be the electronic piano and the special multi-media hall. The electronic piano
integrates the functional advantages of the traditional piano and the modern technology
when it was used in preschool teaching. Teachers usually use it for the management of
classroom discipline. For example, some specialized melodies represent some specific
orders for children in the preschool classroom, such as before having breakfast, having
lunch, taking a nap, leaving school, and asking children to keep silent etc. Teachers use
this approach to foster childrens disciplined awareness. In addition, teachers played
the electronic piano just as the traditional one when having music lesson to interact with
children. For example, when teaching children to sing a song, unlike online playing the
background music of a song, teachers can stop at any point and start from any point
based on the childrens condition if they using the electronic piano during the course.
The electronic piano has a very high using frequency in the classroom. Besides, there
were two specialized multi-media halls in the private kindergarten in Shenzhen. The
size of the multi-media hall was twice over than a normal classroom. It integrated
multiple ICT-related devices, such as computer, Projector, a large digital screen with
touch panel and four loudspeaker boxes. When teachers need to present images, videos,
multimedia courseware in order to achieve their instructional goals, they will have class
in these specialized halls with children. In addition, digital television in the normal
classroom were used to play some cartoons and pictures to children in the break time.
4.2.2 Software
Results show three sorts of ICT software were being commonly used in both
kindergartens which are PowerPoint, Lesson planning software, and Data sharing
Platform. In the preschool class of both kindergartens, teachers used PowerPoint to
present children the session content in a logical and systematic manner with the form
of the texts, images, audios, and videos. The lesson planning software and the Data
sharing Platform are both newborn types of ICT software which introduced in recent
years for preschool teachers. The lesson planning software was used for the course
design preparation before the class for each teacher. The aim of the Data sharing
Platform was to promote mutual learning and experience exchange towards teaching
skills and methods among teachers. Besides, a minority of EC teachers expressed they
used Flash which was made by themselves before class in teaching. They though
making Flash by themselves was an effective way to improve their computing skills,
and to catch the childrens attention in class.
In the past, teachers needed to spend a heap of time to collect useful information
through looking up the book and related paper resources before having class. Then they
organized the collected information in a written form. Also, teachers had a lot of hand-
made work for the lesson preparation before class, such as drawing the colorful
pictures and making cartoon images. These required teachers to spend a lot of time and
energy and even in their spare time. However, currently, the processes of resource
collecting and lesson preparation become much easier and more efficient than
previously by using ICT support. For example, I usually collect the useful information
from Internet during my lesson preparation process, including written information,
images, music, videos etc. which relate to my session topics. Then I use PowerPoint
and Lesson planning software to collate the collected information in a systematic and
logic manner on computer. (Participant Wang)
In the 1990s preschool class in China, teachers need to explain every detail towards
the knowledge in session orally. However, it was really hard to explain the knowledge
related to some specific subjects in the textbook without any ICT tools for children, such
as science subject. Because the experiences of children are limited. While, currently
almost every teacher using ICT devices to show the digital colorful pictures and videos
to children when having class. Based on my personal teaching experience, I feel directly
showing the colorful images and videos by ICT devices made my explanations much
easier and vivid, and after that the childrens reactions made me feel they can
understand the knowledge that I taught. (Participant Gong, Public kindergarten in
Nanchang)
Almost every child interested in the colorful digital pictures, moved images, and
electronic games in a big screen. Every time when I display the colorful images and
videos, they looked very excited. Also, children enjoy to interact with the big screen
when playing the electronic games when having class. ICT can catch childrens
attention immediately. (Participant Wang, Public kindergarten in Nanchang )
The traditional modes of teaching in the preschool class were entirely based on the
teachers knowledge background what was limited. But now, ICT in particular Internet
provided opportunities for us to learn while teaching. In the processes of the lesson
preparation and teaching in class, the online resources expanded my horizons and
enriched my knowledge indeed. (Participant Shen, Public kindergarten in Nanchang)
Teachers would regularly put the courseware made by ourselves and the useful images
or videos in the data sharing Platform. Also, the manager would put some topics in
relation to the early childhood pedagogy, and require us to answer. Then, teachers
would discuss towards the topics online and share the teaching experiences to each
other. I think it can promote the mutual learning among teachers and mutual
improvement. (Participant Shen, Public kindergarten in Nanchang)
I always thought two questions towards ICT application in teaching, utilizing ICT in
what manners can effectively making children interpret knowledge in class?; and
utilizing ICT in what manners can make the session further diverting. In order to
address the above two questions, I deigned various learning activities in class for
children based on the teacher-children-ICT interaction, and I tried different teaching
approaches. For example, I designed a lot of play-based learning activities by using
AIO PC. In the processes of those activities, each child had opportunities to touch the
colorful images of digital screen, to sing and dance follow the videos etc. They looked
really enjoy the moment in class. (Participant Pei, Public kindergarten in Nanchang)
My major was music and I have a lot of ideas of integrating music into preschool
teaching. The electronic piano helped me to organize different types of play-based
activities and to manage the classroom discipline. (Participant Han, Private
kindergarten in Shenzhen)
In the past, most teachers can easily draw out whatever the children require. When
children frequently see their teachers drawing pictures, they would have desire to draw
the pictures as well. Under this circumstances, I think it can move up childrens worship
toward their teachers, whilst their learning initiative be promoted. However, nowadays
the Internet can provide any types of images and paintings in class. Teachers prefer to
collect colorful images online then display it to children in class, but not drawing while
teaching, because it is obviously more convenient than drawing pictures. Naturally, the
drawing capacity of teachers tend to be poor than in the previous time. Childrens
interests of drawing also currently decreased, it is mainly because they have very few
opportunities to perceive teachers painting. (Participant Shen, Public kindergarten
in Nanchang)
In the current digital world, children have lots of chances to engage different kinds of
electronic devices in their lives, especially at homes and in the schools. It is difficult for
us to decide the application amount in the kindergarten for children. It is easy to lead
ICT overuse for teachers who have less teaching experiences. The overuse of ICT in
the classroom may lead childrens diminution of vision. (Participant Wan, private
kindergarten in Shenzhen)
reading books tend to be more helpful for nurturing childrens literacy and
concentration competence. Engaging too much colorful images and videos would lead
children cannot accept the learning approach of book reading. They even feel boring
towards reading books. While reading booking tend to be more beneficial for
developing childrens attentional control ability. During my teaching process, I found
children always pay highly attention on the colorful digital images, videos and
electronic games etc., while they performed impatient attitudes toward book reading.
(Participant Wang, Public kindergarten in Nanchang.)
Most of times when I need to switch the content on the screen of AIO PC, there were
some web advertisings and small icons came out immediately, and this would attract
childrens attention and interrupt the classroom discipline. So I think it would be better
to disconnect with the Internet when having class, and teachers can collect all of the
useful information towards the lesson topic before class. Besides, I think AIO PC need
to equip with a remote control. In that way, I can address this problem more efficiently,
and bring childrens attention back within a short time. (Participant Wang, Public
kindergarten in Nanchang)
In the current teaching practice in the classroom, teachers always operate ICT to
delivery knowledge to children. The direct interactions always happen between
teachers and ICT. It is limited for childrens active learning. So I think that the engineer
can design more educational software which can make the direct interaction between
children and ICT. This may motivate childrens interest in learning. (Participant Gong,
Public kindergarten in Nanchang)
I think teachers need to improve their own skills and abilities of using ICT in teaching,
such as making PowerPoint or Flash. Because only in this way teachers can make the
best use of ICT in teaching in order to promotes childrens development and learning.
Moreover, a sufficient lesson preparation is also very important, because it can avoid
the reduction of teaching efficiency during class time by directly searching information
online when have class with children. (Participant Pei, Public kindergarten in
Nanchang)
I suggest teachers optionally use the ICT in teaching, and thinking more on which
specific type of ICT can be the most appropriate one in some specific teaching practice.
Both traditional teaching method and ICT-assisted teaching method need to be
integrated in teaching. Teachers can not entirely rely on any kind of them. (Participant
Shen, Public kindergarten in Nanchang)
4.5 Theme 4: teacher training and policy
The results showed that the majority of interviewed teachers feel that they lack the
competence, confidence and knowledge to integrate ICT in teaching. Both
kindergartens have a training department which is responsible for assessing and training
teachers teaching competence and skills regularly. Teachers capacity of ICT
application is also a part of training content in both kindergartens. Trainers and the
suppliers of the related ICT trained the in-service teachers how to use different types of
ICT resources regularly. However, trainers and the suppliers are always put the focus
on How to operate a ICT device but with limited pedagogic guidance, which was the
same issue refer to the ICT-related teacher trainings in both kindergartens. In addition,
there are no explicit guidelines in relation to when and how to integrate ICT in a
pedagogic manner in teaching syllabus. Teachers need to decide by their own when and
how to use ICT in teaching. Therefore, although all teacher participants in both
kindergartens expressed that they have already very familiar with the basic functions
on using ICT, while they cannot make sure whether they integrate the ICT in teaching
practice in an effective and appropriate manner, in particular when having class with
children.
In our kindergarten, the manager in charge of the teacher training would regularly
training our skills related to the operation of ICT. Besides, every time when our
kindergarten introducing a new ICT device, the supplier carried out the group training
session in order to help us grasp the related using skills of the new ICT product.
(Participant Wang, Public kindergarten in Nanchang)